Sloganeering on buses mustn’t show only one side

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Ihave from the start felt uncomfortable about the big, bold advertisements by
Stonewall, the gay campaigning group, on the sides of London buses: “Some
people are gay. Get over it!” The tone’s wrong, it’s insolent, dismissive,
confrontational; and if people sincerely believe something is wrong I don’t
think shouting at them to “get over it” is appropriate. The poster’s
aggressive.

So, call me churlish, but I cannot really welcome Boris Johnson’s alleged ban
on an evangelical Christian group who want to answer the aggression with an
ad of their own: “Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!”

Their implication is that they can “cure” homosexuality. I don’t for a moment
believe God will turn you straight if you pray to Him; but hair restorer
won’t restore your hair and wrinkle-removal creams don’t remove wrinkles —
yet we wouldn’t ban advertisers from tempting fools into hoping otherwise.

TfL (Transport for London) has every right to police the tone of the
advertising that its buses carry but it must be even-handed. A rule that the
sides of buses are not the place for loudmouth posters on sensitive subjects
would have disqualified both sets of ads, to the benefit of the city’s
streets. Some people don’t like sloganeering. Get over it!

Cash cache

Largely overlooked in the British press was a quite extraordinary announcement
last Friday by the new right-of-centre Spanish Government. Spain is to ban
(or try to) all cash transactions of a business nature that exceed €2,500.
Italy is planning something similar.

This attempt to crack down on the black market has the ring of desperation
about it and we must guess it will prove unworkable. But just say it did
work. If governments could progressively squeeze cash out of the system and
accelerate the already rapid advance of credit and debit cards and bank
transfers as the way we do business, then think what control this would give
the national exchequer over our lives. Taxing transactions would become by
far the most straightforward way for the State to raise money, while the
role of taxes on assets and incomes would shrink. Treasuries across Europe
will be watching this Spanish experiment with interest.

Red letter day

Last Thursday’s Letters pages in The Times detained me for longer
than the whole of the rest of the paper. The correspondence was fascinating.
The advantage over online commentary that a Letters page offers readers is
that someone else (the editor) has done the sifting and selected commentary
that offers expertise and experience.

On April 12 a letter about nursing from a retired clinician argued against
uncritical enthusiasm for “compassion” alone and pointed out how important
it is for nurses to maintain a measure of professional emotional detachment.
I’ve hardly heard this argument mentioned in all the recent debate.

But it was the centrepiece of these pages that really engrossed me: “The
scientific case against incineration of Britain’s waste”. Four letters of a
highly expert kind, but clearly written, and all in agreement, took issue
with Ross Clark’s Thunderer on April 10. After reading each carefully I
entirely changed my opinion on the advantages of burning rubbish.

The readers of an intelligent paper such as this are an immense resource at
the disposal of fellow readers, and I used to hope that online exchanges
would become a valuable new way of bringing better and greater access for
all. I often read online commentary, and sometimes learn from it, but it
isn’t opening up a brave and interesting new world of readers’ commentary as
I had hoped. The old-fashioned Letters page is still the best way to mine
the talents and learning of a newspaper’s readership.

Catalytic

From my train as it whizzed through Luton on Monday I caught sight of a
hoarding above a nondescript brick building: “COUGAR ACCIDENT REPAIR
CENTRE”. For a moment my thoughts sped to the misty cloud forests and
sweeping mountainscapes of the Andes where these sleek beasts leap and
prowl, their bright eyes shining. How little they know of Luton. Could it
even enter the cougar mind — could it be grasped by the cougar imagination —
that a panel-beater’s establishment in Luton bears their name?

Public schooling

If one more media report, one more newspaper leading article, one more
newsflash sees fit to inform me within seconds of its start that Neil
Heywood was “Old Harrovian Neil Heywood” I think I shall scream. Why is that
interesting? Why does it matter? What’s it got to do with anything that he
went to a public school? If he’d been educated at the Anthony Gell
comprehensive school in Wirksworth, would he be the “Anthony Gell
comprehensive- educated Neil Heywood”?

For heaven’s sake what’s wrong with us British? Are we crazy? Some people are
Old Harrovians. Get over it!